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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29999235">Autumn Leaves</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gremlin_In_Blue/pseuds/Gremlin_In_Blue'>Gremlin_In_Blue</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Cartoon 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Family Fluff, Gen, Sibling Bonding, Turtle Tots (TMNT)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 19:34:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,109</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29999235</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gremlin_In_Blue/pseuds/Gremlin_In_Blue</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: August, family, fun</p><p>(Made for EvelinArtStudio in a twitter exchange a while back)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Autumn Leaves</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Donnie was getting fed up with his brothers.</p><p>Leo was bundled up in several layers and still complaining of the cold. Raph kept looking around as if Pops would pop (haha, pun!) out of nowhere, or maybe one of those vans that Pops had told them about would stop and offer them candy only to dissect them (which was stupid, why would anyone dissect their only specimens). And Mikey?</p><p>Donnie was sure that Mikey had picked up almost every single leaf he'd come across.</p><p>The young turtle pushed his glasses higher up on his muzzle and let out the sigh of a genius very much used to dealing with lumbering oafs.</p><p>"Oafs," he said, just to try the word. "A lot of lumbering oafs."</p><p>"Shaddup," Leo huffed. "I'm cold, I wanna go home!"</p><p>"Yeah, Donnie, we shouldn't even be up here until we're big," Raph said. "W-why don't we just go back to the sewers? It smells weird up here."</p><p>"I think it smells nice!" Mikey chirped. "Look, Raphie! This leaf is as big as my hand! Oh! And this one is as big as yours!"</p><p>"I wanted to see them, Raph," Donnie said. "We've already come this far, and the park is right over there! Please?"</p><p>Raph rubbed the back of his neck.</p><p>"I dunno, Donnie," Raph said. "Pops says-"</p><p>"Come on, Raphie!" Mikey said. "I wanna see them too!"</p><p>Mikey was doing puppy eyes. Donatello, never one to pass on opportunity, slid in next to him to slam their eldest with a double dose of puppy eyes.</p><p>"Alright, but let's make it quick," Raph said. "I don't want anybody going into brumation up here. And Leo's cold."</p><p>Which is exactly why Donnie had chugged a coffee earlier, but Raph didn't need to know that.</p><p>"Leo's just whiny," Donnie said.</p><p>The slider glared from beneath the hood of his coat, but the softshell ignored him.</p><p>It felt like ages before their eldest had finally gotten them to the park (with their hoods up, they should be easily written off as a group of children, but Raph had not accepted this excuse from Donnie), but Donnie already knew that it had been worth it.</p><p>The trees were covered in reds, oranges, yellows, and browns. A few still had green. Mikey was already running forward despite Raph's words to stay close to the snapper's side, running and jumping among the leaves with loud giggles.</p><p>Donatello carefully collected a few samples of each color. Leo, to Donnie's surprise, even helped him find a few green ones to compare them to when they got back home with his equipment.</p><p>Their eldest stood guard, every muscle tense as he scanned the area for the slightest sign of danger.</p><p>Donnie felt Leo nudge him, and he glanced to the slider. His self proclaimed twin nodded towards Raph and grabbed an armful of leaves, and Donnie rolled his eyes. Even so, he set his samples aside in the case he had brought and grabbed an armful of his own.</p><p>Mikey looked up as they silently stalked past him. The box turtle's grin grew and he scooped up his own armful.</p><p>Silently, the three turtles crept up to their older brother. They shared a grin between them, and Donnie mouthed the words down from three.</p><p>Raph shrieked when he was bombarded by leaves, sending his younger brothers into giggles as they split in seperate directions and out of his reach. He caught Leo first, who was unable to waddle away fast enough as bundled up as he was, then caught Mikey, who got distracted by a pretty leaf halfway through. Donnie, on the other hand, ran on, the only survivor, giggling as he did so.</p><p>Raph gave up soon enough, releasing his gremlin brothers from his arms. They ran to Donnie, still laughing despite having been captured, and Donnie spoiled them with a high three for a job well done, while Raph finally came over to join them, seeming a little more relaxed now.</p><p>Donnie wouldn't put it past Leo for that to have been the goal, anyways. For all his stupid actions, the slider was conniving. Donnie would not call Leo smart. Cunning? Conniving? Sly? Sure. But smart? No, being the smart one was Donnie's job.</p><p>"This one is the same color as your stripes, Leo!" Mikey chirped, holding up what was, indeed, a surprisingly accurate shade of red to the slider's eye stripes. "And this one's got the same green as you, Dee!"</p><p>Donnie grabbed the offered leaf and examined it against his scales.</p><p>"It's a lighter green than my scales, Angelo," he said.</p><p>He put it in his case anyways.</p><p>"In movies, kids make piles out of these and jump in them," Leo said.</p><p>The slider pulled an armful of leaves into a small pile, as if to prove his point.</p><p>"A frog couldn't jump in that," Raph said. "Move over."</p><p>The three smaller turtles moved, watching as the snapper used his arms to make his own pile. The three shared a glance before running to collect their own leaves to throw onto the pile. It was soon about the size of Pops, maybe bigger, and the four turtles stepped back to behold their work.</p><p>"Not bad," Raph decided.</p><p>"Should we get more?"</p><p>"Nah, Mikey," Leo said. "I'm getting cold."</p><p>"You were cold to begin with, Leo," Donnie said.</p><p>"Well, yeah! But I'm more colder now!"</p><p>"Colder. You don't need to say more colder, you can't use those two words like that!"</p><p>Leo only blew a raspberry in response.</p><p>"Enough," Raph scolded.</p><p>They all went quiet, staring warily at the pile of leaves before them.</p><p>"So now what?" Mikey asked.</p><p>"Now we're supposed to jump in it," Leo said. "Donnie should go first."</p><p>"What? Why me?"</p><p>"Cause coming out here was your idea! Look, there's no trick, I'm being nice!" Leo said.</p><p>Donnie squinted at him.</p><p>"I'll go!"</p><p>True to his word, their youngest took a running start and iumped. The leaves exploded into the air, and the box turtle let out a delighted squeak that got his older brothers to all perk up.</p><p>"My turn!" Raph said.</p><p>"You didn't even want to come up here!"</p><p>"Well, neither did you, Leo!"</p><p>Donnie ignored both of them and jumped.</p><p>The leaves crackled all around him, shooting around like confetti. Raph and Leo soon followed, destroying their carefully made pile, and the four brothers unanimously started rebuilding it.</p><p>"Just one more time," Raph said. "And then we go home, okay?"</p><p>Three 'okays' were chirped in answer.</p><p>Several hours later, four very tired turtles were collected by their equally tired father and carried home to bed.</p>
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